Showing papers in "The Sociological Review in 1999"
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TL;DR: The paper explores one after the other the four difficulties of actor-network theory, that is the words ‘actor’, ‘network’ and ‘theory’—without forgetting the hyphen.
Abstract: The paper explores one after the other the four difficulties of actor-network theory, that is the words ‘actor’, ‘network’ and ‘theory’—without forgetting the hyphen. It tries to refocus the originality of what is more a method to deploy the actor's own world building activities than an alternative social theory. Finally, it sketches some of its remaining potential.
1,606 citations
TL;DR: The authors explored the tension central to the notion of an actor-network, which is an intentionally oxymoronic term that combines structure and agency, and argued that this tension has been lost as "actor-network" has been converted into a smooth and consistent "theory" that has been (too) simply and easily displaced, criticised or applied.
Abstract: What is a theory? Or, more broadly, what is a good way of addressing intellectual problems? This paper explores the tension central to the notion of an ‘actor’ - ‘network’ which is an intentionally oxymoronic term that combines—and elides the distinction between—structure and agency. It then notes that this tension has been lost as ‘actor-network’ has been converted into a smooth and consistent ‘theory’ that has been (too) simply and easily displaced, criticised or applied. It recalls another term important to the actor-network approach—that of translation— which is another term in tension, since (the play of words works best in the romance languages) to translate is to also betray (traductore, tradition). It is suggested that in social theory simplicity should not displace the complexities of tension. The chapter concludes by exploring a series of metaphors for grappling with tensions rather than wishing these away, and in particular considers the importance of topological complexity, and the notion of f...
1,353 citations
TL;DR: In this article, actor network theory and its semiotic relatives have reshaped ontology by underlining that the actor network can be seen as a kind of actor-network theory.
Abstract: This is a chapter that asks questions about where we are with politics now that actor network theory and its semiotic relatives have reshaped ontology. They have reshaped it by underlining that the...
1,352 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that ANT fails to offer a satisfactory theory of the actor which is allegedly endowed either with limitless power, or deprived of any room for manoeuvre at all.
Abstract: It is often argued that ANT fails to offer a satisfactory theory of the actor which is allegedly endowed either with limitless power, or deprived of any room for manoeuvre at all. The aim of this p...
814 citations
TL;DR: In terms of morbidity, children tend not to exhibit clear health problems, but obviously engage in activities that have important implications for their health and well-being (West & Sweeting, 1996), and these activities may be influenced by, as well as impact upon, children's social capital.
Abstract: This exploratory article forms the background for an empirical study for the Health Education Authority on children, young people, health, well-being and social capital. In terms of morbidity, children tend not to exhibit clear health problems, but obviously engage in activities that have important implications for their health and well-being (West & Sweeting, 1996), and these activities may be influenced by, as well as impact upon, children's social capital. Social capital is an elusive concept and has been defined in various ways, and refers to sociability, social networks and social support, trust, reciprocity, and community and civic engagement. The paper contrasts three interpretations of the concept, by Coleman (1988, 1990), Putnam (1993, 1995) and Bourdieu (1986). It concludes that the concept is currently poorly specified as it relates to children, and that the use of the term is inherently problematic, and needs to be carefully critiqued and empirically grounded before it can usefully be applied in social policy formulations. One possible way forward might be to conceptualise social capital not so much as a measurable ‘thing’, rather as a set of processes and practices that are integral to the acquisition of other forms of ‘capital’ such as human capital and cultural capital (ie qualifications, skills, group memberships, etc).
772 citations
TL;DR: The authors examines the deployment of professional discourses in occupational domains not traditionally associated with the professions (e.g., management, clerical or sales staff) and examines how these discourses are turned into "progressive" discourses.
Abstract: The paper examines the deployment of ‘professional’ discourses in occupational domains not traditionally associated with the professions (eg management, clerical or sales staff are turned into ‘pro...
672 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors consider dispositifs and their constraints to be generative: they do not simply reduce but also reveal and multiply the capacity of a subject to create and make use of new capacities.
Abstract: After describing objects as networks, we attempt to describe ‘subject-networks’. Instead of focusing on capacities inherent in a subject, we attend instead to the tactics and techniques which make possible the emergence of a subject as it enters a ‘dispositif’. Opting for an optimistic analysis of Foucault, we consider ‘dispositifs’ and their constraints to be generative: they do not simply reduce but also reveal and multiply. The generative power of ‘dispositifs’ depends upon their capacity to create and make use of new capacities in the persons who pass through them. Drawing upon a diverse body of literature and upon fieldwork among drug addicts and music amateurs, we show how this point of entry into the question of the subject immediately and irredeemably undoes traditional dichotomies of sociology. It becomes impossible to continue to set up oppositions like those of agent/structure, subject/object, active/passive, free/determined. We also have to look beyond studies of ‘action’ and describe ‘events’...
412 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors use the example of food to explore questions of identity in relation to the specific cultural location of "the home" and use case study examples to illustrate the complex ways in which identities, throughout the lifecourse, are produced, articulated and contested through food consumption and the spatial dynamics of cooking and eating.
Abstract: Food is perhaps one of the most mundane and taken for granted parts of our everyday life, yet the ways we think about shopping, cooking and eating are actually intensively reflexive. This paper uses the example of food to explore questions of identity in relation to the specific cultural location of ‘the home’. Using case study examples the paper illustrates some of the complex ways in which identities, throughout the lifecourse, are produced, articulated and contested through food consumption and the spatial dynamics of cooking and eating. In doing so the paper demonstrates that households, rather than being single units of food consumption, can be sites of multiple and sometimes contradictory consumption practices and that it is necessary to understand how patterns of eating are negotiated and contested within households in order to understand how the home functions as a ‘consumption site’.
267 citations
TL;DR: The home has been constructed as a source of identity and as an essential foundation of social order as discussed by the authors, however, such order is based on the experiences of many women of the home as a prison, who experience abuse, violence and the suppression of self within the supposed safe haven of the domestic home.
Abstract: ‘Home’ and ‘homelessness’ serve to define each other at a phenomenological level. For the settled population, homelessness is a source of fascination and repulsion, an embodiment of their fears (of poverty and alienation) and their dreams (of freedom and simplicity). The ‘unaccommodated woman’ in particular is an aberration and a contradiction in terms: the gender renegade who has rejected, or been rejected by, traditional family and domestic structures.
The home has been constructed as a source of identity and as an essential foundation of social order. Such order, however, is based on the experiences of many women of the home as a prison. These ‘homeless-at-home’ women experience abuse, violence and the suppression of self within the supposed safe haven of the domestic home. The article draws on the author’s own ethnographic research with homeless women and men within the Three Cities Project on youth homelessness and crime, and concludes by examining two ways of being homeless: identity work and the management of bodily space.
213 citations
TL;DR: This article examined changing managerial cultures in the FE workplace, in this case among academic "middle" managers, which suggests that managerialism is not as complete or uncontested as is often portrayed.
Abstract: Advocates of devolved and market oriented Education reform, point to the benefits from self determination which enhance both teacher and managerial autonomy. Critics refer, on the other hand, to the ways in which running education institutions on business and accounting principles have introduced a new managerialism (Clarke et al, 1994; Pollitt, 1990; Clarke and Newman, 1997), which has driven a wedge between lecturers and senior manager interests. In Further Education, according to Elliott (1996a), this finds expression in conflict between lecturers in defence of professional and pedagogic values, and senior managers promoting the managerial bottom line (Randle and Brady, 1994). The danger in polarising such interests in this way is that it presents a plausible, if not oversimplified, analysis of organisational behaviour as market forces permeate FE. If this paper concurs with many critics on the effects of the new managerialism, it departs company from a prevailing determinism which assumes an over controlled view of the FE workplace (Seddon and Brown, 1997). Despite evidence of widespread casualisation and depro-fessionalisation in FE, this paper examines changing managerial cultures in the FE workplace, in this case among academic ‘middle’ managers, which suggests that managerialism is not as complete or uncontested as is often portrayed. The paper draws on an ESRC research project conducted by the authors (ESRC no. R000236713), looking at Changing Teaching and Managerial Cultures in FE, at a time when the sector is emerging from a series of funding crises associated with redundancies, industrial action, mismanagement and low morale at college level.
212 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the relation between subjectivities, materialities (including technological arrangements) and bodily competencies is explored, starting from the assumption that all material and bodily arrangements are specific, and the "passages" through which these specific arrangements are fitted together for a particular person, who is physically disabled.
Abstract: This chapter explores the relation between subjectivities, materialities (including technological arrangements) and bodily competencies. Starting from the assumption that all material and bodily arrangements are specific, it considers some of those specificities, and the ‘passages’ through which these specific arrangements are fitted together for a particular person, Liv, who is physically disabled. It explores the character of some of Liv's ‘passages’—some are ‘good’, some ‘bad’, some public, and some discrediting—and the ways in which they are shaped to produce personal and biographical continuity and relative autonomy for her—an autonomy and capacity discretionary decision making which she highly values. The paper thus uses some of the tools developed in the actor-network approach, but also in feminism, to interpret the material and corporeal relations involved in the formation of contemporary subjectivities.
TL;DR: The authors criticises the ontology of Margaret Archer's morphogenetic social theory, arguing that the concept of autonomous social structure on which she bases this social theory is contradictory, and tries to re-habilitate the interpretive tradition which Archer dismisses, showing that only this tradition provides a logically coherent and methodologically useful social ontology.
Abstract: This article criticises the ontology of Margaret Archer’s morphogenetic social theory, arguing that the concept of autonomous social structure on which she bases this social theory is contradictory. Against the ontological contradictions of Archer’s work, the article tries to re-habilitate the interpretive tradition which Archer dismisses, showing that only this tradition provides a logically coherent and methodologically useful social ontology, which consists only of individuals and their social relations.
TL;DR: In this paper, an ethnographic account of the significance of rap music and hip hop culture for white youth in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in north-east England is presented.
Abstract: This article offers an ethnographic account of the significance of rap music and hip hop culture for white youth in the city of Newcastle upon Tyne in north-east England. Although white appropriations of black music in Britain have been well documented in sociological work, there is currently very little research on white responses to rap and hip hop. During the course of this article I identify two distinct responses on the part of white Newcastle youth to rap and hip hop. I then go on to argue that, despite their differing nature, each of these responses can be seen as bound up with issues of locality and local experience.
TL;DR: The notion of the perpetuum mobile is put into circulation through these texts in order to trace some of their more unusual and unfamiliar connections as discussed by the authors, including a whole series of parallels with seventeenth century classical philosophy and with nineteenth century social energetics.
Abstract: Going after means taking up a position with regard to something and the active pursuit of that same thing. It is the critical move par excellence, but also an act of appropriation. This essay suspends the urge to go after in preference for an exploration of the trajectory of that body of texts known as the sociology of translation. The figure of the perpetuum mobile is put into circulation through these texts in order to trace some of their more unusual and unfamiliar connections. These include a whole series of parallels with seventeenth century classical philosophy and with nineteenth century ‘social energetics’. Connections are drawn out by using three ‘test signals’, which are sent on through the ANT canon: substance, force and time. Pivotal to each is the sense of how very different events and apparently diverse territories can be brought into contiguity, or folded up together. This contiguity needs to be performed rather than described, placed in translation rather than simply presented. The chapter concludes by tracing a way from the strange folds of ANT to the equally peculiar forms of early Psychology.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used data from an electronic discussion group for general medical practitioners (GPs) to evaluate the similarities and discrepancies between on-line and face-to-face interactions.
Abstract: It has been argued that on-line networked communication can enable the establishment of ‘virtual communities’. Empirical data from an electronic discussion group for general medical practitioners (GPs) are used to evaluate these claims, and to explore the similarities and discrepancies between on-line and face-to-face interactions.A distinct social order for this ‘community’ is reported, and the strategies to establish this order in a textual environment are discussed. Participants went through a cycle of integration into membership, and some generated distinctive virtual identities or personae. The notion of a ‘virtual community’ is critically discussed. Participants interacted as if they were part of a community, but it is suggested that the interactions on the list are best understood as extensions of the wider social relations of general practice. The study of virtual communities may thus have relevance for wider issues of social inclusion and citizenship. The paper also includes reflections on ‘cyber...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze how Swedish couples perceive the sharing of money and consumption between themselves and their partner, and conduct interviews with ten Swedish married couples to find out how they perceive the relationship between money sharing and consumption.
Abstract: This article analyses how Swedish couples perceive the sharing of money and consumption between themselves and their partner. Interviews were conducted with ten Swedish married couples. Each spouse...
TL;DR: The authors presents a sympathetic critique of Bourdieu's work in terms of the tension between its critical intentions and its leanings towards sociological reductionism, and argues that although the author argues aga...
Abstract: The paper presents a sympathetic critique of Bourdieu's work in terms of the tension between its critical intentions and its leanings towards sociological reductionism. Although Bourdieu argues aga...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors trace the origins and prototypes of the themed restaurant to provide a typology of theming devices and to offer an analysis of the theming strategies and strategies.
Abstract: The themed restaurant is an example of a process of theming which is characteristic of many of the leisure experiences of contemporary society. This paper seeks to trace the origins and prototypes of the themed restaurant to provide a typology of theming devices and to offer an analysis of theming strategies. The various perspectives on theming as a cultural device are discussed, and the concept of quasification is introduced in order to advance our theoretical understanding of the theming process in its broader cultural context. Specifically, it is argued that the techniques of quasification entail the active and knowing involvement of both those who engineer themed settings and those who purchase participation in them. Late modernity, it is argued, has an unprecedented capacity for creating quasified experiences as antidotes to the tedium of its mundane everyday settings.
TL;DR: The question of whether "culture makes a difference" is often put in terms of the symbolic resources such itinerants bring to bear on their new environment; this apparently innocent, indeed pragmatic, question, unintentionally masks an implicit assumption that some cultures may be better, more valuable, more successful than others in some profound moral sense as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: The movement of migrants, traders, settlers and refugees across international and cultural frontiers (by no means a dislocation unique to the 20th century) repeatedly raises the question of how such peoples ‘integrate’, ’assimilate’ or ‘accommodate’ to a new social and cultural setting. The answer is often put in terms of the symbolic resources such itinerants bring to bear on their new environment; of whether ‘culture makes a difference’. Yet this apparently innocent, indeed pragmatic, question, unintentionally masks an implicit assumption that some cultures may be better, more valuable, more successful than others in some profound moral sense.
TL;DR: The authors explored a case of science policymaking about IUDs in Australia and found that this stabilisation of a singularity depends on multiplicity, and that the negotiation of a compromise involves the making of a centred knowing position, an object, and a consumer choice.
Abstract: Many studies of controversy tell stories of convergence, of movement from difference to sameness, of a narrowing from many competing versions to a single stabilised ‘reality’. This paper explores a case of science policymaking about IUDs in Australia. What begins in controversy ends with a single view of the IUD—a view presented in a consumer information leaflet. But surprisingly, what is found is that this stabilisation of a singularity depends on multiplicity. The negotiation of a compromise involves the making of a centred knowing position, an object—the IUD, and a consumer choice. But this is only made possible by the proliferation of difference: the decentring of the knowing subject, the ‘doing’ of many different IUDs, and the dispersion of choice from the head of the consumer across time and space. Closure then becomes a very different story, a story of oscillation between sameness and difference, of doing singularity and multiplicity together.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors take as their starting point ANT's success in overcoming descriptive resistance to dealing even-handedly with persons, things, artefacts and so forth together, and point to a situation which attempts evenhandedness, resource transfer in the wake in the Biodiversity Convention, while at the same time re-inventing the very divide between Technology and Society which ANT has sought to demolish.
Abstract: This chapter takes as its starting point ANT's success in overcoming descriptive resistance to dealing even-handedly with persons, things, artefacts and so forth together. It points to a situation which attempts even-handedness, resource transfer in the wake in the Biodiversity Convention, while at the same time re-inventing the very divide between Technology and Society which ANT has sought to demolish. The same may be said of procedures of recompense, and the chapter considers issues in intellectual property rights as they have been extended to the compensation-sensitive milieu of Papua New Guinea: what is intended to balance out interests creates new social divisions. It thus raises questions about processes of social differentiation. It is also intended to show the applicability of ANT models to the practical understanding of what otherwise would just seem too heterogeneous a collection of materials.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the question of how violence to the person is socially defined, and in particular how understandings of violence are both gendered and sexualised, with specific reference to the binary distinction between the public and private and to notions of culpability and victimisation.
Abstract: Theoretical understanding of the meaning of the term violence is underdeveloped. This paper examines the question of how violence to the person is socially defined, and in particular how understandings of violence are both gendered and sexualised. It highlights how victim characteristics, as well as the social and interactional contexts in which violence occurs, influence interpretative frameworks, with specific reference to the binary distinction between the public and private and to notions of culpability and victimisation. This entails a consideration of the social meanings which constitute notions of a ‘person’ with a ‘right to life’ and occupation of ‘public space.’ The importance of the victim/perpetrator dichotomy in theorising violence is also considered. These themes and issues are examined in relation to a relatively new area of study; the case example of public violence towards lesbians and gay men.
TL;DR: In this article, the stories which begin this paper evoke puzzling, small moments in the life of contemporary Nigerian (Yoruba) class, growing from my years as a lecturer in a Nigerian university in the early 1980s.
Abstract: Growing from my years as a lecturer in a Nigerian university in the early 1980s, the stories which begin this paper evoke puzzling, small moments in the life of contemporary Nigerian (Yoruba) class...
TL;DR: This paper examined changes to the community life of older people living in three urban areas of England: Bethnal Green, Wolverhampton and Woodford, and identified a number of general arguments pointing to the value of a community and locality perspective for understanding the impact of social changes on later life.
Abstract: This paper examines changes to the community life of older people living in three urban areas of England: Bethnal Green, Wolverhampton and Woodford. All three were the subject of classic community studies in the 1940s and 1950s, these providing rich material about the lives of groups such as elderly people. Using this earlier research as a baseline, the paper presents data on how the experience of living in urban neighbourhoods has changed for older people in the intervening years. The article reviews the relationship between elderly people and their neighbours, drawing on quantitative as well as qualitative data. In conclusion, the paper identifies a number of general arguments pointing to the value of a community and locality perspective for understanding the impact of social changes on later life.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that an understanding of the mutual constitution of the economic and the social is the key to understanding the structuring of class and stratification, and they argue that recognition of the fact that economic and social practices are embedded in each other rather than separate spheres of life might be a way of renewing the study of class in a more holistic fashion.
Abstract: In this conclusion we consider how the chapters in this volume might renew the class analysis tradition sketched out in the introductory chapter by Crompton and Scott. As part of this aim, we also reflect more broadly on the state of stratification theory and research in the light of current debates. Let us start by noting that although the chapters of this book are diverse in content and theoretical orientation, there are some arresting points that clearly indicate certain trajectories in class analysis and stratification research. The major point that emerges is the need to reconsider the relationship between economic inequalities by which we mean material inequities arising out of market processes and social inequalities and specifically cultural differences springing from consumption and lifestyles. We want to argue that an understanding of the mutual constitution of the economic and the social is the key to understanding the structuring of class and stratification. This chapter is organized as follows. In the first section, we begin with some general comments on the relationship between economic and social inequality and consider how some sociologists in the field of class analysis have neglected economic restructuring and the implications for material inequalities in the 1980s and 1990s. In the second section, we consider the varied ways in which the authors of the chapters consider economic processes in the last twenty years and how they look at the implications of these processes for material inequalities. We thus retread similar ground to Crompton and Scott but we focus less on the chapters themselves and more on how they contribute to a rethinking of class analysis. In the third section, we examine the recent debate on culture and class and it is here that we explore how the two discussions on economic and social inequalities might be brought together. We argue that recognition of the fact that economic and social practices are embedded in each other rather than separate spheres of life might be a way of renewing the study of class and stratification in a more holistic fashion than has characterized the sub-discipline of late.
TL;DR: The articulation of a generic social process of "body femaling" was further developed in this article to provide a conceptual framework for a sociology of transgendered bodies and to distinguish a number of contemporary trans-gendering body stories which are considered in terms of four major modes or styles of body trans gendering: those we identify as'migrating', 'oscillating', 'erasing' and 'transcending'.
Abstract: The articulation of a generic social process of ‘body femaling’ presented in Ekins (1993) and elaborated in Ekins (1997) is further developed in this article to provide a conceptual framework for a sociology of transgendered bodies. Transgendering refers both to the idea of moving across (transferring) from one pre-existing gender category to another (either temporarily or permanently), and to the idea of transcending or living ‘beyond gender’ altogether. Following Plummer's (1995) work on sexual stories, we distinguish a number of contemporary transgendering body stories which we consider in terms of four major modes or styles of body transgendering: those we identify as ‘migrating’, ‘oscillating’, ‘erasing’ and ‘transcending’. We give illustrative examples of each mode with reference to the binary male/female divide, the interrelations between sex, sexuality and gender, and the interrelations between the four main sub-processes of transgendering, which we identify as ‘substituting’, ‘concealing’, ‘imply...
TL;DR: In this article, the social and technical implications of new forms of information technology, together with recent developments in management theory and practice, have resulted in considerable debate concerning the social, technical, and economic implications of these new technologies.
Abstract: New forms of information technology, together with recent developments in management theory and practice, have resulted in considerable debate concerning the social and technical implications of th...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the history of the museum and the kind of art associated with it at different points in time, and show how what we understand as heterogeneiety has changed over time.
Abstract: This chapter critically engages with the idea of heterogeneity that has been important to actor-network theory. By looking at the history of the museum and the kind of art associated with it at different points in time, the chapter shows how what we understand as heterogeneiety has changed over time. The history of the ordering and displaying role of the museum reveals different responses to an idea of heterogeneity and to consequential conceptualisations not only of vision and agency but also to subject-object relations. The idea of heterogeneity is caught up with these changing relations between subject and object and with the spatial configuration through which they are constituted. The museum is an important historical site through which such changing relations and changing understandings of heterogeneity can be analysed.
TL;DR: In this article, a multi-method approach based on interviews with women in different occupations was used to analyse possibilities of change in marital communication and the domestic division of labour in relation both to women's material and to their relational resources.
Abstract: Investigating the possibilities of change in marital relationships, we argue, involves examining the interplay of gender consciousness, relational resources and material circumstances in their concrete, interactional manifestations. The attempt to address this interface is grounded in the idea that understanding gender relations necessarily involves both institutional and interactional dimensions. While much research has been devoted to the influence of material or structural resources on indicators such as the domestic division of labour, relatively little direct attention has been given to the issue of differing ‘relational’ or interpersonal resources. We use a multi-method approach based on interviews with women in different occupations to analyse possibilities of change in marital communication and the domestic division of labour in relation both to women's material and to their relational resources. We conclude that a combination of increased gender consciousness and the development of particular inter-personal skills facilitates negotiation and change in the boundaries regulating both communication and the domestic division of labour within the marital relationship.
TL;DR: Young people remain inhibited in their exploration of sexuality not only by heterosexual morality and gendered power relations but also by their transitional status, yet the age dimension of youth remains undiscussed as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Young people remain inhibited in their exploration of sexuality not only by heterosexual morality and gendered power relations but also by their transitional status, yet the age dimension of youth ...